“It’s fine, Rae,” her mom whispered. “You can’t time these things down to the second.”

Except we had. At exactly one o’clock, we were supposed to hear the signal that told us Maya and Daniel were in position. The signal? Maya’s cat scream, guaranteed to echo unmistakably through the building. She’d yowl, Derek would get to her, and, between the two of them, they’d take down our captors while Daniel went through a bag of zip-strips tying them up.

It was now 1:10.

“It’s a slight delay,” I whispered. “But as long as everything’s quiet, that’s all it is: a delay. If something went wrong, we’d hear it. And we do have a backup plan.”

“Which is that if we see trouble or it goes past one-thirty, we get out. Any way we can.” Jacinda squeezed her daughter’s shoulder. “It’s okay, baby. Chloe has this—”

Footsteps pounded down the hall. We simultaneously dove under the old saw. That’s why we’d been waiting there—the big hunk of machinery was conveniently raised just far enough off the floor to provide a good—if tight—hiding spot.

“Sorry!” Liz whispered as she crouched beside the machine and peered under it at me. “I was checking the other direction and didn’t see him coming. It’s one guy heading straight this way, so don’t move.”

I nodded and whispered something to Jacinda. She agreed and passed on the message to Rae, on her other side.

“Murray’s right,” a voice said. “The kids are gone. Whatever he heard over in the west quadrant? It wasn’t rats.”

A reply came across a radio. The footfalls stopped with a squeak.

“Hold on,” he said. “I think I’ve got something. I’ll call you back.”

The radio clicked off. The footsteps continued. Then, a hand reached down and grabbed Jacinda’s ankle, and the man yanked her from her hiding place as she squeaked in protest.

“Are you girls under there, too?” He bent and peered beneath the saw. “Why, hello, Rachelle.”

“Hello, asshole,” she said and held up her glowing fingers. “Want to try pulling me out? Don’t worry—I only give second-degree burns.”

He snatched for her outstretched leg—and I slammed a sedative dart into his shoulder as Jacinda slapped her hand over his mouth. I’d crawled out the other way while he’d been focused on Jacinda and Rae. The darts came courtesy of Derek. He’d brought them in, hoping—correctly it seemed—that they wouldn’t be so thorough checking for weapons on a werewolf, presuming he came with his own built-in. When I’d realized it was only one guy, I’d had Jacinda stick her leg out. Better to take this guy down while we could.